UNIT 4: INTRODUCTION TO MATERIALS, PROCESSES AND TECHNICAL SKILLS IN ART & DESIGN
NYC Rooftop:
For this unit I was required to model a rooftop in New York City in a 3D space using Maya. As preliminary research for my model, I researched various rooftops in New York and in games, exploring how they were created. Also, creating my rooftop required an understanding of how to manipulate polygonal objects as well as a consideration towards appropriate materials, colours, textures and lighting to create a realistic looking environment.
Architectural visualisation 1:
This image of The Zaha Hadid building is located at 520 West 28th Street in New York City and shows the attributes of a proposed architectural design. Similarly to many modern buildings, this visualisation uses glass as its predominant material in its large, wide windows and balconies. Also, the use of limited colours such as whites, blacks and greys are evident in New York City buildings, appearing very contemporary yet simple. In addition, this design features repetitive patterns such as the zigzag created by the interlaced floors and has bevelled edges to have a smooth surface. Furthermore, this visualisation has extruding balconies that alternate and is spaced away from other surrounding buildings. Overall, this design of a New York city building is very innovative and futuristic, especially as it is moderately tall.
Architectural visualisation 2:
Similarly to the previous visualisation of The Zaha Hadid building, this building on 61 Ninth Avenue, New York also uses glass as its main material. However, this building uses more basic shapes, such as squares, achieving simplicity. Also, it has multiple extruding areas that create private terraces for residents. In conjunction to modern buildings, this design is limited to white and black. On the other hand, the rooftop features yellows, browns and greens due to the use of plants and trees. Furthermore, the building itself is very close to neighbouring buildings but stands out due to its height. The rooftop features glass railings in order to fully view its surroundings as well as stools and chairs.
Architectural visualisation 3:
This is The Marriott Marquis, located at 1535 Broadway, Times Square, New York. Compared to previous architectural visualisations, this building is highly industrial due to part of it being an advertisement screen. However, it features glass as one of its main materials for its long, narrow windows and entrance. In regards to colour, it is limited to blacks and greys but sections of windows are tinted in various shades of blues. Furthermore, this building is tall compared to other buildings and is spaced closely to them.
Research into how game designers have modelled rooftops:
Remember me
The images above are from ‘Remember Me’, a sci-fi video game set in 2084 in a futuristic version of Paris. Despite the game not being set in New York, the futuristic aspect of it provides inspiration for my futuristic rooftop model. Similarly to modern buildings of New York, glass can be seen as a common material. Also, hologram billboards are featured on buildings as well as floating in areas and plants can be seen on rooftops. In addition, buildings use a tile patterns where certain tiles extrude and incorporates simple colours such as blacks and whites with minimal colour. Furthermore, buildings are closely spaced together resulting in travelling across them to be possible.
Mirrors edge: Catalyst
This second game is called ‘Mirrors edge: Catalyst’ which is a free-running game portraying a less futuristic city than the previous game. The buildings are tall and spaced closely together with large rooftops, allowing lots of space for movement. The buildings themselves incorporate geometric shapes such as square tiles and hexagons. In addition, the rooftops in this game feature ziplines, crash mats, pipes and planks which are signified to be able to interact with by the colour red. In terms of colours, these buildings are very limited to black and white but also features minimal use of a single bright colour in particular areas of the game.
Destiny
This third game is called ‘Destiny’ which is set seven hundred years into the future. This game is in a post-apocalyptic setting where some areas feature clean futuristic buildings while other areas are covered in vegetation. Similarly to ‘Remember Me’, this game features holograms and plants. These tall buildings feature balcony railings, stairs as well as geometric floors and walls where shapes extrude. Also, in the background planets and various vehicles can be seen in the sky. Furthermore, some buildings defy gravity and float. In terms of colour, this game features dull, dirt colours in the vegetated rural areas and bright colours such as white in the urban areas.
Reference imagery
As further research in preparation to creating my rooftop, I found ten images to use as references. These images are of modern rooftops and buildings in New York as well as representations of futuristic, sci-fi cities. These will help to inspire ideas for my futuristic version of New York.
Development of NYC rooftop
Firstly, I modelled a rooftop with a swimming pool and elongated the building. I then created and duplicated my assets such as stools, candles and the glass railing around the edges of the rooftop. Next, I created the windows, doors and stairs of the building. For my second building, I used the edge loop tool on a cylinder, extruded the faces of one step and increased the scale of each progressively to create the stairs of the building. In order to travel between buildings, I modelled a walk-way. Next, I modelled a longer building where the rooftop would be the car park for futuristic vehicles such as hover-boards. Also, flights of stairs were created for players to be able to return to the rooftop from the ground and arranged a composition for my futuristic model of NYC.
Assets
Texturing
I textured each of my buildings a bright colour so that I could differentiate between the areas I had and hadn’t textured. Then, I textured the window assets with a blinn material so that it would be shiny and reduced the transparency. Next, I textured the tiles black, white, greys and orange. Using my candle asset, I used a lambert material to create a matt surface and imported an image by selecting the square next to colour and the texture of candle wax. Whilst texturing the floor of the swimming pool, I had to use the UV editor to adjust the scale of the texture. In regards to my second building, as it were to have the same textures, I mirrored my first building and elongated it. I then added assets such as doors, balconies and stairs. Upon texturing my third building, I decided to change the colour scheme from it’s original dark colours to white, greys and blue. This was a result of reflection on my research of New York City buildings as well as my reference imagery which have a similarly colour scheme, appearing clean and modern looking. While texturing the pillars of my third building, I used the cylindrical mapping to map my texture around it. Also, I increased the scale of the third building so that it appears more prominent than the other buildings and increased the height of my mirrored building for variation in the heights of my buildings.
Images of textures used:
Normal maps
By using Photoshop, I created normal maps of my textures. These normal maps are used to make an object appear to have three-dimension on its surface. The images above are the normal maps I applied to my objects using the checkered box under bump mapping.
Lighting
In order to create a scenery for my futuristic version of NYC, I created a sky dome using a sphere and reversed it’s mesh. Then, I textured the sky dome with an image of a futuristic city and applied spherical mapping.
Final rooftop (rendered images)
Architectural visualisation
Evaluation
For this project I was required to model a rooftop in New York City using Maya. From my research of modern rooftops in NYC, I decided that my rooftops would be set in the future. The downfall of this choice resulted in a lack of similarity to New York. In response, I could have demonstrated more of an influence of New York by featuring an iconic building. The most interesting stage of the project was texturing my rooftops using normal maps as I learnt how to make the surfaces of my objects appear 3D. During the process of creating my model of NYC rooftops, I gained knowledge of how to construct buildings from basic shapes, texture and mirror objects as well as create bump/ normal maps. However, I would like to further develop my understanding of how to use the UV editor to ensure that all of the faces of my object are textured accurately. For this project I researched games that were futuristic such as ‘Remember me’ and ‘Destiny’ as well as games that seemed modern and clean looking like ‘Mirror’s edge’. Within this research, I explored how rooftops are designed, the setting, colours, materials used, height and spacing’s between buildings. These games helped to indicate what my model of a futuristic NYC should resemble. On the other hand, I encountered some problems whilst completing the project. For example, I had not named my materials or textures and had copied and pasted my objects instead of duplicating them. This lead to Maya not working efficiently, thus affecting the speed at which I could have been working. Therefore, I resolved to deleting all of the pasted materials, naming my materials and reapplying them to their appropriate places. As a result, I was able to efficiently assign materials to objects.
Animation & Games design 